diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 79da255b..b91cb3a4 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 - Collapsed definitions for single-character spinners, to save memory and reduce import time.
 - Fix print_json indent type in __init__.py
 - Fix error when inspecting object defined in REPL https://github.com/Textualize/rich/pull/2037
+- Fix incorrect highlighting of non-indented JSON https://github.com/Textualize/rich/pull/2038
 
 ### Changed
 
diff --git a/tests/test_highlighter.py b/tests/test_highlighter.py
index a3fe2b05..a34334e3 100644
--- a/tests/test_highlighter.py
+++ b/tests/test_highlighter.py
@@ -113,6 +113,22 @@ def test_highlight_json_with_indent():
     ]
 
 
+def test_highlight_json_string_only():
+    json_string = '"abc"'
+    text = Text(json_string)
+    highlighter = JSONHighlighter()
+    highlighter.highlight(text)
+    assert text.spans == [Span(0, 5, "json.str")]
+
+
+def test_highlight_json_empty_string_only():
+    json_string = '""'
+    text = Text(json_string)
+    highlighter = JSONHighlighter()
+    highlighter.highlight(text)
+    assert text.spans == [Span(0, 2, "json.str")]
+
+
 def test_highlight_json_no_indent():
     json_string = json.dumps({"name": "apple", "count": 1}, indent=None)
     text = Text(json_string)